Just wondering if anyone has got any suggestions of suppliers of decent office chairs. I have been looking for our office which is small, circa 10 people.

Having looked around there seems to be a lot of rubbish that won’t last very long around the £100-150 mark. We want decent 8 hour chairs but I cannot see to find someone who offers a decent range for reasonable money. Obviously I know that we could go to someone like Herman Millar but don’t think the budget is going to stretch to £850+ a chair.

I would think £250-£350 seems like a fair budget but cannot seem to find anyone offering the middle ground between £100 and £1000
Any ideas greatly appreciated, Thanks in advance.

Steelcase. Though I’ve no idea if they’re cheap or not.

keep an eye out for refurb/bankruptcy stuff on ebay as obviously there are companies going under every day and the office equipment needs moving on.

It’s how I kitted out my home office (for 2 of us) with two chairs, three desks, two filing cupboards and two draw-sets for a few hundred quid.

half of it:

e.g.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10x-Reupholstered-in-Any-Colour-Fabric-HUMANSCALE-Freedom-Headrest-Task-Chair-/281040898391?pt=UK_BOI_Office_Equipment_Supplies_Office_Furniture_ET&hash=item416f57c957

At my place we have always used TEK seating to supply all our seats. Good service and large range of products, sure they will be able to meet your requirements.

also

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lot-of-10-x-Knoll-Life-Swivel-Black-Aluminium-Designer-Office-Chair-With-Arms-/390504604034?pt=UK_BOI_Office_Equipment_Supplies_Office_Furniture_ET&hash=item5aebe36182

Maybe check Ikea? At least you can sit on them (and go for a corridor race) before you buy.

I got a “Markus” after reading good reviews of it. £125, 10 years warranty. Very comfy, weighs a ton though.

My computer chair came from Viking Direct IIRC. Leather office chair for thirty quid, can’t go wrong.

Make sure you opt out of their mail catalogue though, or you’ll be inundated with the damn things.

If you are providing chairs for staff to sit in for 8 hours, check and check again. Last thing you need is to shell out on chairs only to have someone develop back pain etc and have to replace the lot. Is there any way you could do a rolling programme?
We did as has been suggested here, went to a bankrupt furniture supplier – 8 good chairs for under £1500, all rated for 8 hours comfort.

Steelcase Think, quite firm but I really like them.

If you’re after something stylish, then a used set of Eames chairs would look good. An aluminium group EA 108 by Vitra or ICF in fabric will be in budget. Of if you want something ultra comfortable but not as sexy, and Aeron chairs are cheap used. Make sure they work properly though as parts are expensive. Plenty of office clearers on eBay selling the Aeron and I am sure you can haggle.

Reg, my company supplies office chairs for every budget and I’d be happy to get you trade prices for them if you like……no pressure!

My computer chair came from Viking Direct IIRC. Leather office chair for thirty quid, can’t go wrong.

Actually Cougar, you can go very wrong! Maybe not overnight, but there is a good reason why companies spend decent sums on ergonomically designed and well constructed chairs. Buy cheap desks, but spend money on your chairs as its likely you’ll spend more time in it, than in your own bed!

Agree with the posts about looking for stuff being stripped from other offices. We managed to get 3 Okamura Contessa’s on ebay for about £250 each from a bank that was being refurbed. They are great chairs. Cheap chairs that I used to think were OK now feel horrible in comparison. but unfortunately the Contessas cost about £950 new.

It’s a bit like bikes, when you first start out you may think a £100 bike feels OK but as soon as you’ve ridden one that costs £1000 you can’t go back.

Sometimes you can get lucky with cheap chairs, other times you won’t.

Last year I wanted a Herman Millar Aeron but realised after using them in the office that I didn’t actually like them that much. Found a Giroflex G64 I liked, sat in it and found it had limited “features” and wasn’t my bag either. Got shown a Steelcase Leap and wow, what a chair! Bought it straight away. Luckily it was from a dealer clearing out a load of stock (allegedly from Lehman Bros) so I got it dirt cheap instead of £800+. The best chair I’ve used by a country mile.

Yeah we do the G64’s and funnily enough my own chair is a Contessa I blagged as a demo 10 years ago when I sold about 100 of them. These chairs will last forever and support you properly, but are silly money.

There are decent UK made chairs that will do something similar for less than half that money though. The Achitects tend to specify the ‘names’ in the industry.

There’s a number of social enterprises that provide secondhand office furniture at very low prices, and there are hundreds of chairs and desks to choose from:

http://www.londonreusecommercial.org/pages/buying_furniture.html – see links to operations in Midlands, North and Scotland
http://www.sofaproject.org.uk/ in Bristol